


Season of Change

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Post-Sirius in Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5923009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus angsts about a whole lot of everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Season of Change

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

**Spring, 1977**

Remus Lupin knew that the moment he declared himself remotely self-sufficient, he would probably struggle financially. He felt he'd cost his parents too much already; they'd paid their dues in wizarding society for supporting him unconditionally, and to ask them for money after leaving Hogwarts would be like robbing them blind. This issue particularly weighed on his mind as the seventh year was nearing its end, and he pondered rather gloomily whether he could manage to obtain a nice-sized cardboard box to reside in the following year.

He was already well aware that he would not likely be able to obtain a position allowing him anything more comfortable; most employers in the wizarding world were reluctant to hire a registered werewolf, regardless of how qualified he might be, and his credentials didn't transfer over to Muggle society particularly well. He could just imagine a Muggle shopkeeper glancing at his résumé over the tops of horn-rimmed glasses: "And where exactly is this... this Hogwarts, Mr. Lupin? Could you please explain your course of study in greater detail?"

He attempted to attribute his apprehension entirely to the fact that N.E.W.T.s were rapidly approaching; he spent long hours in the library staring at the cover of a given book for up to fifteen minutes before remembering that he was theoretically supposed to be turning the pages and absorbing whatever it was that was written on them.

One night as he "studied," he felt a pair of hands come to rest on his shoulders. Jumping with surprise, he tried to turn around to see who'd come to join him, but the hands held him firmly in place. Remus wrinkled his brow and was about to tell the owner of the hands rendering him stationary exactly where they could put their domineering grip when a voice as familiar and beautiful as his favourite song began to whisper in his ear. "Come live with me after we leave school, Moony. I want you with me."

Thoughts began racing through Remus's mind at light-speed, relief, excitement, and alarm fusing into a whirlwind of ambivalence.

Sirius's hands tightened on his shoulders and Remus once again heard that velvety voice, felt it rolling into his ear on a wave of deliciously warm breath. "Just say yes. Whatever you're worrying about, we'll take care of it later, I promise."

Remus' head nodded of its own volition before he had time to consider Sirius' words, and he succumbed to the motion, drowning in his instincts and impulses - all of which were Sirius. A tiny smile crept across his lips as he caught a glimpse of Sirius leaving the library after their interaction, the taller boy's face beet-red under disheveled ebony hair, and Remus was suddenly quite aware of the reasons his boyfriend - always with an image to protect - had not permitted him to turn around.

**Summer, 1980**

For the last few years, Uncle Alphard had footed the bill for the dingy flat in London. The broken banister in the stairwell and bizarre odors drifting down through the vent had been a small price to pay for a daily reveille of kisses and loving arms to curl up in.

"Siri, love, please tell me how you managed to make the eggs both runny and burnt." "I'm a bloody good cook! It was the stove, I swear!" "Yes, just like it's the stove that always forgets to make the bed on the mornings that are your turn..." "Wicked that contraption is... and besides, why should we bother making it anyway if we're just going to mess it up again in a few hours?"

Remus loved the feeling of smiling nonstop. He reveled in his own euphoria when his eyes screwed up a bit at the corners and his face pressed into a grin; the sensation was even better when accompanied by laughter, the chuckles drifting up from his belly. When Sirius was home, Remus was almost able to forget the imminent war and all the dangers that were tied in. Almost.

**Autumn, 1981**

He learned that Halloween that smiles were in fact expensive, much more so than he had initially reasoned. In watching his lover being taken away by Aurors again and again on the front page of the Daily Prophet, watching Sirius laugh as if there were something to be amused about, Remus felt himself paying for every moment of happiness.

He felt too much of himself dissipate in those few moments, his soul a Gringotts's vault being emptied faster than the goblins could account for. Each embrace and sleepily murmured declaration of love in the dark, each soothing word, and every cup of tea that Sirius had held to his lover's lips when Remus was too battered and exhausted to drink after a transformation drifted to the front of Remus's eyes and exploded, the flash of light leaving behind no trace of the experience. Just like being attacked by a Dementor, Remus thought in dull horror, except I'm doing it to myself.

Yet there was a twisted sense of comfort - retribution - in knowing that they were both going through the same thing...

**Winter, 1992**

It didn't take long before the financial struggle within had triggered the financial struggle that Remus had quietly fretted about since seventh year. He had drifted from place to place for over a decade, working wherever and whenever he could. He'd carried metal beams from one end of a Muggle railyard to the other, had catalogued books in Flourish and Blotts when they needed help during the holiday season, and had banished Boggarts from pureblood mansions, all the while opting to patch up his already very shabby robes yet again to be able to purchase new books. That had always been his way; what little money there was, Remus Lupin was guaranteed to spend it on something he could most assuredly live without, but could justify needing more than anything else. His eyes and heart alike always burned when he tried to convince himself that Sirius Black had been one of those things.

**Spring, 1994**

It seemed to creep up in an instant, on his way to his classroom one morning at Hogwarts. Remus suddenly felt the exertion of denying himself the one luxury he was most inclined to indulge in begin to catch up with him. He stopped walking, overcome with inexplicable confusion, and though his logic chastised him and told him to attend to the fifth-year Hufflepuffs he was keeping waiting, Remus felt the self-pity he had for so long refused to let affect him tugging at his sleeve. Try as he might to set his jaw firmly and ignore the stirrings in his chest, it began to grow increasingly difficult to do so, like withholding a yawn from escaping for hours on end.

**Summer, 1995**

Remus had let some of the overwhelming emotions push past his barriers the night in the Shrieking Shack, but had recovered quickly and had spent a year staring at walls and out windows in the tiny cottage Dumbledore had helped him procure. He had remained stoic every moment of the day and forced himself to think that he could not afford to be anything other than emotionally destitute; it had proven far too costly in the past.

He drifted in this way until one morning in late June, when he gazed listlessly out the kitchen window, only to gape at the sight of - was it really? Could it really be? - a Grim trotting up through the wooded area behind his backyard. Remus was hardly aware of walking to the back door, letting the dog in, and watching it transform into the man for whom his need had continued to subtract the wealth from his soul.

After Sirius had eaten, bathed and disclosed to Remus every message Dumbledore had sent him with, the two sat on the sofa in silence, absorbing the dismal outlook for the near future. Even as Sirius tried to make eye contact with Remus, the more-gray-than- brunette man averted his lover's (former lover's? Who knew anymore?) steady gaze. Finally, the silence was broken by a voice, much more hoarse and craggy than it used to be, but still maintaining the same importance and desperation behind its words as it had years ago.

"Talk to me, Moony. Please."

This time it was Sirius attempting to turn Remus toward him, and Remus shaking his head vehemently and pulling away. He opened his mouth to attempt to explain that he couldn't, that he had never been and would never be able to afford the luxury of self-pity. But Sirius spoke first, a gentleness infused in his tone.

"Whatever you're worrying about, it's high time we take care of it, don't you think?"

The words fell like drops of a healing balm on Remus's bleeding ears, and the smaller man suddenly began to shake violently with dry sobs. Sirius pulled him into his arms, still somehow remembering exactly how to comfort his lover, how to rub his back in slow circles, rock him slowly from side to side, whisper sweet nothings into his hair. Remus was sure his indulgence would eventually prove to leave him in a greater debt than he could ever survive - but at that moment, allowing himself to do exactly what he had needed to do for so long, he felt like the richest man alive.


End file.
